Group (collective) nouns in English
See also:
English grammar guide (all about English grammar)
Exercises + PDF worksheets (online exercises and PDF to download)
English nouns (more about English nouns)
Grammar rules with examples
What are group (collective) nouns?
- Group (or collective) nouns are nouns that have a singular form but they describe groups of people, animals or things.
Groups of people: family, police, team...
Groups of animals: colony, flock, herd...
Groups of things: bunch, bundle, set...
Collective nouns and verb agreement
- Group (or collective) nouns normally take singular verbs but they can also take plural verbs because they refer to groups of people.
Our family is going on holiday to Spain in summer.
Our family are going on holiday to different places in summer.
- Learn which collective nouns refer to groups of animals:
a brood of hens, a colony of gulls, a swarm of ants, a herd of sheep, a flock of birds...
- Learn which collective nouns refer to groups of people:
a board of directors, a caravan of travellers, a circle of friends, a flock of tourists, a tribe of Indians...
- Learn which collective nouns refer to groups of things:
a bouquet of flowers, a fleet of taxis, a clump of bushes, a round of drinks, a range of mountains...
Videos
- This five-minute video by a native speaker explains what the collective nouns are and how we use them in sentences.
Video with a song Animal Friends
- This video contains a cartoon with a song on animal group names. Suitable not only for young learners.